![]({"https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61%2BwW9FJHZL._SX329_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg":[331,499],"https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61%2BwW9FJHZL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg":[230,346]})
Shattering Empires fills an important void for students of World War One and Central Asian history. Far too often traditional books on World War One gloss over the eastern front and give the Ottoman Empire little coverage beyond Gallipoli. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk is nothing more than a footnote. To the victors go the spoils and the allied victors have allowed historians to focus almost exclusively on the western and Italian fronts, where the allies stopped German imperialism. But in Shattering Empires author Michael Reynolds provides a vast treasure of information. The Ottoman and Russian empires had been rivals for centuries and the events of 1914 offered them yet another opportunity to settle old scores. Unfortunately for the Ottomans, they opted to ally themselves with Germany on account of Germany's seemingly lack of interest in Ottoman boundaries and territory.
Reynolds acknowledges the Ottoman performance against the entente powers was disastrous save for Gallipoli, and even that was not a resounding successful campaign, and the Russians until 1917 had dominated the Ottomans, but there was a resiliency about the Turks that allowed them to snatch conquest from the jaws of defeat only to suffer through being on the losing side. The Ottomans and Germans negotiated the complex treaty of Brest-Litovsk but when negotiations broke down, military activities resumed to further beat the Russians into submission. The Ottomans, being a regional instead of an international power, focused efforts on the Caucasus, only to find their so-called allies, the Germans, attempting to thwart Ottoman ambitions, even to the point of cooperating with the defeated Bolshviks. But through it all the Turks were able to extract territorial gains and concessions from the Russians only to lose them once the war formally ended.
Reynolds writes much about Ottoman successes but does ignore a few items that probably should not have been ignored. First, as other reviewers mention, the genocide against the Armenians is not thoroughly covered. He glosses over exact numbers and causes and while he admits the atrocities happened, he does not give great detail. Another shortfall, which contributed greatly to the overall Ottoman downfall, was the Arab Revolt sponsored by Britain and France to wrest territory in Palestine and Arabia away from the Ottomans. Reynolds seems more content to highlight Ottoman gains after 1917 and then again during the so-called Turkish War of Independence when Kemal Pasha established modern Turkey, an accomplishment Reynolds says was made possible by the governmental structure the former Unionist government left behind.
Shattering Empires will shatter myths about activities on the Turkish front, something most histories of the Great War ignore. Reynols intent was to track the years 1908 to 1918 and show how both the Russian and Ottoman empires fell and then re-emerged as states willing to cooperate rather than fight against one another. This alone is no small feat given the centuries of animosity between Russia and Turkey, but Reynolds does a superb job in presenting his research and his topic in a way that is new to most readers.
- File Size: 3085 KB
- Print Length: 341 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0521195535
- Simultaneous Device Usage: Up to 4 simultaneous devices, per publisher limits
- Publisher: Cambridge University Press (January 1, 2010)
- Publication Date: January 1, 2010
- Sold by: Amazon.com Services LLC
- Language: English
- ASIN: B004UF45XY
- Text-to-Speech:
Enabled
- Word Wise: Not Enabled
- Lending: Not Enabled
-
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#429,452 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #976 in Political History (Kindle Store)
- #320 in World War I History (Kindle Store)
- #331 in Russian & Former Soviet Union Politics
Would you like to tell us about a lower price?
